


This Time for Me

by airgeer



Category: Glee
Genre: F/M, Gen, Ghosts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 15:14:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airgeer/pseuds/airgeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Glease. Kurt gets a weird text from Tina, calling him to the abandoned theater on the outskirts of town. Things get progressively stranger from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my idea of a post-TBU fic, so, uh, be warned. Thanks always to ileliberte and narie for beta-ing and being so patient with my ridiculous self, even when I spring fics like this on them. Part 2 will be posted Friday!

 

Kurt’s shoes clicked loudly in the silent corridor, echoing off walls that were alternately bare and covered by graffiti. There were soft patches in the concrete, and the rolls of carpet that had once covered it lay against the wall at regular intervals. He regretted not bringing a bigger flashlight, the small one he’d found only able to light up parts of the wreckage of performances past at a time, and the cold was already seeping through his coat despite the layers he’d worn to the Grease opening.

 

The door had been unlocked and half-ajar, unlike the last time Kurt had been out to the abandoned, supposedly haunted, theater, dragged by Finn in some sort of bizarre rite of manhood. Finn had eventually given up when confronted with the chain and combination lock, and Kurt had been less than willing to tell him what a bolt cutter was and where to get one. Sneaking into an old building on very outskirts of town to try and see a ghost was one ridiculous, ridiculous thing, but breaking and entering to do it was another one.

 

“Hello?” he called, his words accompanied by a puff of white breath. “Um, Tina? I got your text, I didn’t see your car, are you here?” Nothing. His phone vibrated in his hand a second later.

 

_Go to the stage_.

 

“Tina, if this is a prank, Grease will be missing Jan for the rest of its run.” Kurt wasn’t feeling exactly calm, alone in a supposedly haunted and definitely abandoned theater late at night except for someone who wasn’t answering him, and he didn’t spare the volume. His only answer, though, was the creak of hinges as a door swung open. He pointed his flashlight toward the noise, expecting Tina but getting an intricately lettered _Performers Only_ sign, hanging above an empty doorway.

 

“Yes, because doors opening on their own is a completely normal occurrence, Tina,” he called down the revealed hallway. “I’m leaving unless you use your voice.”

 

“This doesn’t look like the stage to me, Kurt.”

 

Kurt whirled around with a yelp of surprise, nearly knocking his flashlight into Tina’s shoulder. He stepped quickly back to get some separation, banging his heel hard against something solid and unmoving on the ground. He stumbled and recovered, his light catching Tina in the face until he realized what he was doing and pointed it down.

 

“Oh my _god_ , what are you doing? Re-enacting a horror film with you as the killer?” Kurt clasped a gloved hand over his chest, willing his heart to stop beating so hard.

 

“I need you on the stage.” She was still in her Jan costume, wasn’t smiling, and Kurt felt a flutter of something strange in his gut.

 

“Are you okay?” Kurt ran through the evening mentally, wondering if he’d done something to make her angry, but why would she call him _here_ , of all places, to yell at him? “Have you been talking to Blaine tonight? Because I know that you want me to talk to him, but I couldn’t do it.”

 

“Stage, Kurt, _now_ ,” she ordered, taking him by the wrist and walking through the doorway and down a long slope. The near-dark didn’t seem to bother her as she pulled him around obstacles, her grip tight, and Kurt began to get suspicious.

 

“Have you been here before? What are we doing here?” He tried to stop as he realized an awful possibility, but she kept walking and pulling him. “Seriously, if Blaine’s on that stage and you’re trying to stage some kind of romantic intervention, I won’t forgive you.”

 

“Not everything is about you, you know,” Tina said sharply, speeding up, and either Kurt needed to start working out more often or Tina already had, because his weight didn’t even seem to slow her down, and he had to cooperate to keep his shoulder in joint.

 

Tina let go suddenly, and Kurt’s flashlight flicked out at the same instant as he stumbled at the loss of pressure. He pulled off a glove to fiddle with the switch, nearly blinding himself when it came back on.

 

Tina was gone when he pointed the light towards where she’d been. “Tina?” he called tremulously. “Tina, I swear to god, I am going home. You’re freaking me out.”

 

His phone buzzed in his pocket again, and he fished it out. Finn. _Dude where r u? Coming to breadstix?_

 

_Tina’s being a crazy person, I’m just going home._ Kurt hit send and went to tuck it back away, but it was already buzzing again.

 

_Opening night party tho, come on bro._

 

_I’m tired and I just got into it with Blaine at school, I don’t want to see him at the party too. Goodnight._ Kurt turned the screen off and turned around. “Seriously, Tina, I’m going. Are you coming?”

 

His phone lit up and vibrated. This one wasn’t from Finn. _You go ahead and try._

 

His palms suddenly sweaty despite the cold- except it wasn’t so cold anymore. He couldn’t see his breath, and he couldn’t feel the chill of November that had been biting at him. He shone his light down at the floor to illuminate any obstacles and strode purposefully back the way Tina had dragged him. If she wanted to be a scary crazy person, he wasn’t going to stick around for it.

 

When his light reached the end of the hallway, Kurt nearly dropped his flashlight.

 

The door was blocked. A massive wardrobe that Kurt thought had been lying down along a wall stood against it, and it didn’t make any sense, how could it be blocked from the inside if there was no one there to do it?

 

It was getting steadily warmer, now that Kurt had noticed it, and the door was blocked, and the building had no heat, not anymore. “Tina?” he forced out around the sudden lump in his throat. “Tina, is the theatre on fire?”

 

A buzz, and then: _Come to the stage. I promise it’s safe._

 

The wardrobe was big, maybe too big for Kurt to move without crushing himself, and he didn’t understand what was going on, but if there was a fire, he couldn’t leave Tina. He pulled off his gloves and jogged back down the hall carefully, avoiding debris.

 

He emerged into the backstage area, doors opening into shadowy dressing rooms that hadn’t been used as intended for over fifty years and set pieces still standing from the last show. “Tina?”

 

“Onstage.” She sounded calm, less scary than she had, but maybe that was just because she was getting what she wanted.

 

Kurt slipped between a gap in the set to emerge onto the stage. A piano sat there, underneath a dust sheet, and the curtains, grey in the dim light, were closed, but the stage was empty of life.

 

A quiet scraping behind him had him spinning, only to see that the gaps in the set had disappeared, and along with them his way out. His throat was very dry, and he had to swallow twice before he could say, “Tina, I think the theatre might be on fire. We can’t be here.”

 

“It’s not on fire,” Tina said. “I was just cold, is all. Don’t worry about it.” She was on the other side of the curtain, had to be because he couldn’t see her, and Kurt slipped in between the panels to stand at the edge of the stage.

 

The orchestra pit stood empty below him, overturned chairs and music stands the only marker of what it had once been, and in the audience...Kurt squinted. Was that Tina sitting in the front row?

 

No, because there was someone in the next seat. And in the next seat, and the next, and behind them and his light dissipated too quickly, he couldn’t see faces but they were all so still, sitting in row after row completely unmoving.

 

The house lights came up with a jolt and snap of electricity in ancient bulbs, and Kurt clamped a hand over his mouth to hold in the scream.

 

Mannequins. Every seat in the house, main level and balcony, filled with a human-sized doll with dead eyes, staring at the stage. At him.

 

“Don’t be scared,” she said, behind him again, but Kurt couldn’t look away from the- God, there had to be hundreds of them, how was that _possible_? “They’re here to see the show, Kurt.”

 

“What?”

 

Tina took his coat sleeve, less firmly than she had. There were holes in the audience, he’d been wrong before. Here and there were empty spots, and an entire row near the front was almost empty.

 

“It’s not quite a sell-out crowd, but we’ve been working at this for a long time. Well, long for me,” Tina said, her voice shifting slightly. “Not long for me, after all this time I’ve waited.”

 

“I don’t understand what’s happening.” He sounded higher pitched than usual, and the hysterics he was trying to not have a fit of were leaking through into his voice.

 

“We’re going to perform. We need an accompanist, and I thought if anyone understood, it would be you. Always in the shadow, trying your best, working so, so hard, and never winning because there’s always someone better, isn’t there? There’s always a Rachel, or a Unique, or a Santana, or a Blaine, or a Celeste _fucking_ Piper, isn’t there?” Her voice was hard, biting off the names as she listed them, and she had a venom he’d never heard before when she said, “Sometimes, if you deserve the spotlight, you have to _take it_.”

 

Kurt licked his lips and turned to face her. She met his eyes challengingly, an unfamiliar expression on her face. “Tina, I think that we should go and have a talk. Away from here.”

 

“I don’t,” she said. “I’m happy here. People are watching me.”

 

“Those aren’t people, those are dummies.” Kurt was trembling, unable to stop it. There was something very wrong with Tina, and he knew that he was in over his head. “The way we came in got blocked somehow, but there are other ways out. I can call my dad, he’ll come and take care of this, and then maybe we can go use the auditorium at McKinley? You can perform there, it’ll be okay.”

 

“Don’t call your dad. He wouldn’t understand. Say you understand, Kurt.” Tina moved her hand from his sleeve to his wrist. “She needs this, I need this. Say you understand.”

 

“I don’t- Ow!” Tina squeezed his wrist, impossibly hard. “Okay, I understand, I do, but- Who’s the ‘she’ you’re talking about? Who’s Celeste?”

 

“Celeste Piper is a _whore_ who stole my lead spot, it was supposed to _mine_ , everyone was supposed to see _me_ , and then she came along and _took_ it from me, and she didn’t deserve it, not one bit!” Tina leaned up, nearly face to face, pulling his wrist to keep him close. “I _died_ because of her, and no one ever knew how good I was, no one _cared_ , and I’ve been alone for so long waiting for my audience, Daniel, so alone waiting for you to come back.”

 

It didn’t make sense, nothing made sense, what was happening? “Tina-”

 

“Did you even wonder what Santana was doing onstage tonight, Kurt? Or are you so self-absorbed that you didn’t even think?” She punctuated herself with an agonizing crush of his wrist, and Kurt couldn’t bite back a whimper. She loosened her grip immediately. “I’m sorry, Danny. I got carried away.”

 

“Please let go of me, I can go and get you someone to help-” Tina was already shaking her head and Kurt switched tacks mid-sentence. “I can play for you. You said you need an accompanist. I can play for you, and then we can go, please let go of me.”

 

“No you won’t, you’ll run as soon as I let go. I’ve been around a lot longer than you have, kid.” Tina nearly smirked, and everything slotted into place. Impossibly into place. Furniture moving on its own, set pieces adjusting in an empty theater, Tina dominating him physically like he was no stronger than a toddler and talking like there was two people inside her head, and both of them angry.

 

“Tina never knew a Celeste.”

 

“No, I didn’t,” and her voice changed, inflection switched, “but I did.”

 

“You’re not just Tina. This place really is... really is haunted, and you’re a _ghost_ , oh my god. Tina, please let me go so we can leave and never come back?”

 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Daniel. I told you once that all you had to do was stick with me and we’d go far together, but Celeste ruined that for me and for you, didn’t she? You could’ve played with me, could’ve sung, but you threw that all away when she beckoned.”

 

Kurt tugged at his wrist, trying to free it, but she only held him tighter in retaliation. “I’m not Daniel, I don’t know who Daniel is, please Tina. I get it, I do, I promise I understand feeling overshadowed, but what you’re doing is _insane_.”

 

“Kurt,” and suddenly she was Tina again, but not really Tina, full of a bitterness that she could never have kept hidden, “Oh, Kurt. Think about it. You and me, together, making it big. I would never keep you in my shadow the way Rachel does, you wouldn’t try to force me into yours, we would be _equals_ , and all you have to do is play for me tonight, here, for this audience that’s here to see only us.”

 

“Rachel doesn’t keep me in her shadow, and that’s not an audience, that is a horrifying array of pretend people, and seriously, please let go. This isn’t you, this is-” he choked on the ridiculousness of it all. “This can’t be happening.”

 

“What, you think I can’t be angry? You don’t think that I deserve better treatment than I’ve gotten? Santana _graduated_ , and yet here I am, still losing parts to her. Do you think that I should take that lying down?”

 

“No, but what are you hoping to accomplish for yourself here? Look, Tina, actually _look_. There is no audience here, there hasn’t been in years. What you do here _doesn’t matter_ , there’s no one to see it. It isn’t going to make you famous, it’s just going to get you locked up, because no one’s going to believe that a freaking _ghost_ told you it would.”

 

“There _is_ an audience. All you have to do is open your eyes and _see_.” She spun him around, and the houselights dropped into blackness as the stage lights buzzed on, blinding him. The house was silent, but a shiver raced up Kurt’s spine as he imagined the mannequins, still there and staring.

 

The curtains drew with a rustle, and a horrible clapping sound came from the audience he couldn’t see, the sound of plastic banging against plastic as they applauded. “Oh god,” he choked out. “Oh my god.”

 

“It’s time for the opening acts,” Tina said into his ear. “We need to get into costume, Daniel, or we’ll miss our cue.” She pulled him towards the edge of the stage, the set moving slightly to let them out and into the backstage area. “Do you think any of our friends would like to come see? My parents are out of town, but I’d like for the rest of New Directions to see my moment of triumph. I didn’t prepare invitations, that was just a little too Rachel...hm.” She stopped talking for a moment, but kept dragging Kurt through the cluttered backstage towards the dressing rooms.

 

“I would have invited Celeste, but I don’t know what happened to her after she performed here the last time. It’s been a long time, after all, she’s might be dead by now too.” Kurt blinked at the back of Tina’s head. The person talking through her seemed to go back and forth between knowing she was dead and thinking that she was back talking to Daniel, who was... her accompanist? Her boyfriend? Kurt couldn’t tell, but she’d come back to talking like she was in the present.

 

“What are we doing?” he asked. Tina was stronger than she should’ve been, the growing ache in his wrist was indication enough of that, but Kurt knew how to deal with people stronger than him knocking him around. Cooperate, and look for an escape.

 

But if he ran, what would happen to Tina? Even when she seemed to be the one in control, she sounded off, so unlike herself that it was nearly scarier than a dead person talking through her. If he ran away and left her with a ghost possessing her and wow, tonight was really messing with Kurt’s worldview if he believed in ghosts now. But she had called him, trusted him, and he couldn’t leave her.

 

“You can’t go back onstage dressed like you’re leaving. There are costumes in the dressing rooms.” Tina looked back and smiled at him, eerie in the dim light. “I don’t want anyone else here, I think. I want them to find out after I’m famous. Are you okay with not calling anyone else?”

 

“Yeah,” Kurt tripped over his tongue rushing to agree. The fewer people in the theater, the fewer there were in danger. Probably. “Yeah, of course, whatever you want.”

 

She pulled him into a dark dressing room that lit up as soon as she crossed the threshold, showing off racks of ancient costumes, all white parts yellowed with age and impressively smelly. “I would really rather not put any of that on,” Kurt said quickly. “Like, _really_ rather not.” His skin was already crawling with the thought of even touching them.

 

“Let’s see what you’re wearing then,” she said letting go of his wrist as the door closed behind them. Kurt jerked as it clicked shut and the bolt slid home with a thunk, _there hadn’t been anyone behind them_. He was just about _done_ with things moving on their own.

 

He pulled his gloves off but his fingers were shaking too much to unbutton his coat, and Tina pushed his hands aside, humming a little laugh. “Always so nervous before a show.” She unbuttoned his coat and slid it off his shoulders, laying it on a chair, and stepped back, examining him head to toe.

 

She stared silently for a long moment, and Kurt had to break the silence. “Can I- Can I ask a question?” She nodded without looking up at his face, and Kurt pointed up. “Um, how are the lights working? And, um, there are things moving? What’s up with that?” He tried for casual, but ended on a squeak.

 

“I was alone for a very long time. After everyone left and the theater closed down. Sometimes people would come in, but they never understood, they never heard me. Until Tina did.” She brushed her hair over her shoulder. “It’s been three years since I met her, and she helped me find my audience. When’s she here, I can make things happen. Sometimes I know that the lights shouldn’t work, that it should be cold, but sometimes it’s _perfect_.” Her eyes shone. “All the scouts are here, waiting to see me sing, see me perform. I’m going to make it big, and you’re going to make it with me, Danny.”

 

“That sounds, um, great?” He forced a smile, and Tina relaxed her stern expression into a sweet, genuine smile. “We can go home after this, though, right?”

 

“Of course! We can’t live in a theater, Kurt, don’t be ridiculous. We’ll go home after the show, and tell everyone about it.” She tugged at his scarf playfully. “Lose this, and you’re good enough. I don’t want to be upstaged.”

 

She turned her back on him and pulled her hair out of the pigtails, shaking them out and pulling off her Grease jacket. “I have to get dressed,” she announced. “Would you turn your back, Daniel?”

 

Kurt turned around reluctantly, facing the door, but couldn’t help the tensing of his back muscles. At least if he could see her she couldn’t take him by surprise. Or, she could, because the mannequins had been applauding, Jesus, and anything could move at any time. It didn’t change the fact that he felt better when he could see what Tina was doing.

 

She undressed with a rustle of fabric behind him, and Kurt focused on breathing, on the musty smell of rotting fabric that was so mundane and normal in comparison to everything else. There had been some moisture seepage over the years, clearly.

 

His phone vibrated in his coat pocket, slung over the chair behind him, but he wasn’t about to turn around to answer it so he stayed still, wrapping his arms around himself protectively. He knew it was a futile gesture, that he was at the mercy of whatever the ghost inside Tina decided to do with him, but it was a little comforting.

 

“Could you do up my back, please?”

 

Kurt had grown accustomed to the silence and jerked in surprise when Tina’s voice cut through it. She smiled at him when he turned around, wearing a dress that had once been gorgeous but had definitely seen better days, hanging loose in the back. He touched it gingerly, and when the fabric didn’t dissolve under his fingers, he fastened the buttons as quickly as he could.

 

“What do you think?” she asked, twirling to let him see the front of the dress and long skirt, both fortunately intact in the important places. “Isn’t it magnificent? Celeste would be so jealous.”

 

“Oh, I’m sure,” Kurt said diplomatically.

 

“Such a shame what happened to her, isn’t it Danny?” Tina said with a sigh, smoothing her hands along the grimy skirt of the dress. “Falling like that. I can’t imagine anything worse.”

 

That was new, and Kurt didn’t know how to respond to it. He searched her face for a hint of Tina, even for the bitter ghost, but all he could see was the young woman who thought she was about to be a star. “Me neither,” he said finally. “Tragic.”

 

“At least it was fast,” she said, blinking rapidly. “I didn’t like her, but I’m glad she didn’t suffer.”

 

Kurt had thought he was beginning to understand the situation, but she was confusing him all over again. Celeste was the one that had died? Or maybe they both had, somehow. “Tina-”

 

“Amelia, darling. Did you hit your head and forget my name?” She smiled brightly, sending a shiver racing up Kurt’s spine. “I’ve got your sheet music here somewhere, you left it here earlier. Just a moment.”

 

She turned, neatly sidestepping overturned furniture to pick up a stack of papers on a dressing table. “Now, I put these in order, so you just have to play. What do you think?”

 

Kurt took them, flipping through gingerly. She’d given him handwritten piano scores from various classic Broadway shows, all of them old and crumbling. ‘Somewhere’, ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, ‘I Could’ve Danced All Night’… ‘Rose’s Turn’ was at the bottom, and that was just… terrifying. He knew how he’d used that song to express himself, taking away the original context. An already violent ghost having a musical breakdown onstage about how she’d used people to get what she wanted-

 

“Danny?” Tina looked at him expectantly. “What do you think?”

 

“Um…” Kurt stalled, unable to think of anything to say. “I think you’re going to blow them all away.”

 

She smiled at him for an instant, and then giggled in an unsettlingly unlike Tina way. “You always did say the right thing. Shall we? I think it’s our time to go on.”

 

Kurt knew how to play piano. That the first time he’d accompanied anyone besides himself was when the boy he’d had a hopeless crush on had been singing out his feelings about girls was a constant embarrassment, but he had done it before. Making it harder was that the ink on the scores Tina, or Amelia, or whatever she wanted to be called, had given him had run in spots, making them hard to read, and the arrangements were unfamiliar. He could’ve sung every song in that pile in his sleep, and probably had, if his dad’s complaints had any merit at all, but he wasn’t going to be able to play them credibly.

 

Also, the minor detail that Tina hadn’t spoken to him as herself for at least five minutes was a tiny bit stressful, and he was more than a little worried that she was going to kill him. If Celeste actually had died, he had his suspicions about it being accidental. Playing the piano was the least of his concerns.

 

“Can I ask a question first?” Tina nodded as she reopened the door, and Kurt took a deep breath. “What happened to Celeste?”

 

“Well, I know that she was jealous that I took over the star spot in this Review. The poor thing just couldn’t keep up with me even if she did have a month longer to prepare. I think…” Tina dropped her voice to continue _sotto voce_ , “I think that she might have jumped off that balcony.”

 

“Did she?” Kurt asked sharply, throwing caution to the wind in the hopes of bringing Tina back to the surface with a dose of realism. “Or did you? Earlier you said that you died because of her, and that she left here. Which one of you performed and which one died?”

 

She stared at him for a second, eyes wide and shocked for an instant before they were angry and narrow. That was all the warning he had before she _moved_ , jerking him forward and slamming him against the door frame. The sheet music fluttered to the floor as she pressed her arm up and against his throat, with no weight behind it. It was still a potent reminder that she’d been dragging him around since he’d first seen her, and Kurt swallowed involuntarily at the threat.

 

“I did. I died, but you will not ruin this for me,” she hissed. “I have waited too long, worked too hard, and this is _my moment_. Not yours, not hers, _mine_.”

 

Kurt held still, looking down and away from her face and waiting until she relaxed to say, “Tina? Can you hear me?”

 

“My name is Amelia, and if you call me that again I’m going to become cross.” She stormed out of the room, and Kurt could almost admire her technique, except he was shuffling the sheet music back together and only caught about half of it.

 

“What did you do, Tina?” he muttered. “And why would you think that I’d be the best person to be involved? Should’ve called the Long Island Medium lady, not ‘someone who would understand’.”

 

He pushed the pile of paper into some sort of order, and gasped out a slightly hysterical laugh at the disheveled stack. “I’m going to be killed by a ghost because I couldn’t play piano for her, how can this be happening?” ‘Rose’s Turn’ was stuck in the middle of ‘Somewhere’, or at least the first page was, because the rest of it was near the bottom, and everything else was similarly out of order. He didn’t know what she would do when he messed up, and he _really_ didn’t care to find out.

 

His phone buzzed again, and he abandoned the hopeless cause of the music to rush and grab it. He couldn’t see Tina, and presumably the mannequins wouldn’t mind waiting a little longer. He didn’t know who to call, or what to say, but he needed help.

 

Blaine had just texted him, and Kurt felt a tiny flare of irritation that he was already trying to talk to him again after leading with “Let me tell you exactly what happened between me and the guy I cheated on you with, because it’ll make me feel better and you feel worse” and the hurt really must have been dulled by the physical distance because Kurt hadn’t realized how angry he was until they’d been face-to-face, but it was still Blaine. If Kurt called him and said that he was about to get murdered by a ghost, he wouldn’t write it off as a prank like a 911 operator might.

 

Blaine picked up on the first ring, breathing out a disbelieving “Kurt?”

 

“I’m at the old theater, turns out it really is haunted,” Kurt said in a rush. “Tina’s possessed or something, she’s filled the audience with mannequins and I’m pretty sure she’s going to kill me. I need-”

 

He didn’t get to say “you to call the police”, and he definitely didn’t make it to “don’t come”, because a chair was abruptly smashing into his face. He dropped his phone, his fingers pulled away from it by an unseen force, and staggered back into a mirror.

 

“Kurt.”

 

He was bleeding. There was blood trickling down his face from his lip, and his eyes were watering from the hit to his nose. He could hear Blaine through his phone still, high-pitched and worried, until the call abruptly cut off.

 

Tina’s hand fisted in his hair and dragged him down to her level. “Tina was so, so wrong about you, Kurt. If you want to be a star, you have to do whatever it takes, and I’m so much better than either of you.”

 

“Whatever it takes, is that why Danny left?” Kurt asked, swiping at the blood on his chin. “You said he threw it all away when Celeste beckoned, but wasn’t he just doing what it took to be a star? _She_ was better than _you_ , and he took his chance.”

 

She smashed his head back into the mirror, an ominous crack of glass echoing under the burst of pain. She wasted no time in pulling him back down again, tripping over words in her anger. “Danny was a coward, afraid to face the man he was.” Kurt blinked, trying to bring her back into focus, and Tina had to drag him upright again when his knees buckled. “He couldn’t even tell me that he wasn’t going to play for me. I found out when he went on stage with Celeste, and then they were all so sad when I “fell” from that balcony. It was supposed to me; why was it _never_ me?”

 

She paused, looking at him like she wanted an answer, and Kurt took a deep breath. “Because that’s not how life works, Amelia. You put everything you have into it, but there’s always someone better, and all you can do is keep trying. But what you’re doing now isn’t going to change anything.” Tina _looked_ at him, not giving an inch of freedom from her hard grip on his hair, but she was calmer, less immediately dangerous. “You died. I’m sorry, but it happened. There are no more chances for you, and all you’re doing now is hurting people who don’t deserve it.”

 

“You’re a liar,” she whispered, tears gathering in her eyes. “They were going to love me, they _are_ going to love me.”

 

“They aren’t,” he said, as gently as he could around the blood pounding in his head. “The only people here are me and Tina, and how do I know that you’re not hurting her right now, using her like this? Think about what’s really happening, not what you want to happen.”

 

“I’m sorry she hurt you,” Tina whispered, and she was mostly Tina again, letting go of his hair. Kurt leaned against the mirror, gingerly touching the back of his head to check for blood. “Everyone left her. I just, I thought that if I helped her perform she wouldn’t be stuck here anymore.”

 

He wasn’t bleeding, at least. “Okay, but the mannequins? Seriously Tina, the mannequins?”

 

“I didn’t want to argue with her.” She paused, furrowing her brow. “I don’t think I could argue with her. She makes everything so foggy when I’m with her. She used my phone and my credit card when I was here, ordering them a couple at a time. My parents just pay the bill so long as I don’t bother them or go over the limit, and she needed me.” She looked pleadingly at him. “No one respected her, no one gave her a chance, and I could do that for her. What was I supposed to do?”

 

“Let her down gently, maybe? Not feed into an angry dead person’s delusions? What’s she going to do if we go through with this and nothing changes for her?”

 

“You really don’t get it,” Tina breathed. “How could I _not_? I met her two years ago, and I was already being passed over for _everything_ , and nothing has changed since then. She made things fuzzy, and of course I know that she can’t make me famous, but I wanted her to so badly, so, so badly. I wanted to show everyone that I could do it, that _my_ voice, _my_ talent were enough, and then they’d all know how big of mistakes they’d made and she made it so easy to believe that it would happen.” She looked helpless, desperate, just for a second. “Is your head okay? I’m so sorry, I can’t believe she did that.”

 

“I think I’m okay,” Kurt said. “What were you thinking though? Why would you think that I’d go along with a creepy ghost’s plan to become famous?”

 

She dropped her gaze. “I didn’t- She wanted someone to play for her like her old accompanist did, and I thought that if anyone understood being passed over for not being good enough it would be you, and then I was sending you that text before I’d even realized it. I didn’t think she’d hurt you, she always just seemed really sad.”

 

And maybe she had been right that Kurt could’ve understood, because he knew resentment well, even if he had become the master of letting it go to save his relationships. “I might have been more sympathetic if she hadn’t led with the terrifying dummies and then physical assault,” he allowed. “Is she gone? It seems like she’s gone.”

 

“I think the lights would be off if she was gone, but they’ve never been on before. I’m not sure where she is right now, but she’s not talking to me.” Tina looked towards the door of the dressing room. “I’m not sure I want to, but maybe I should go and find her.”

                   

“Or we can go, because there’s nothing we can do for her and she gets mad easy.” Kurt looked for his coat, catching Tina shaking her head out of the corner of his eye.

 

“Please, Kurt. She _needs_ this. We can’t leave her here alone.” She grabbed his hand, fortunately bypassing his bruised wrist.

 

“Have you actually lost your mind? I’m sure she’s very sad, but she’s also very dead _and_ very capable of killing us both. We need to get out of here while we can.”

 

Tina bit her lip, and nodded agreement, but she still looked conflicted. “I just…I just feel so awful leaving her like this. She’s never been scary like this before.” Tina looked at his face, where his lip was swelling, and sighed. “… Maybe we _should_ go.”

 

“Yes, it’s awful, and I’m sure I’d feel worse if it weren’t for the concussion, but seriously, grab your coat and let’s go. It’s time to go.” He tried to pull his hand out of hers, but couldn’t get free.

 

“No, Danny,” she said seriously. “It’s time for you to play, and time for me to sing. No one’s going anywhere.”

 

“Oh, god.” She pulled him away from the mirror and towards the door, the music fluttering on the floor as a wind he couldn’t feel blasted it around. “Tina? Tina, don’t let her do this, it’s your body, not hers.”

 

She was silent, pulling him into the backstage area and towards stage right. Phantom strains of an orchestra echoed around them, almost too quietly to hear. “Blaine’s going to call the police, and this is all going to over. Please, you have to stop this _now_.”

 

“He’s not going to do anything,” she said with finality. “I sent him a message of my own.”

 

Kurt’s stomach introduced him to the not-at-all-pleasant feeling of having a lead weight form inside it. “What did you do?” he choked out through suddenly dry lips. She had disappeared for long enough to do _anything_ to him. She said she needed Tina in the theater, she hadn’t said that she was confined to it, and if she’d hurt Blaine because Kurt had called him-

 

“I sent him a text message, saying that it would be in your best interest if we weren’t interrupted.” She giggled suddenly, nervously, shifting from the bitter spirit to the debuting star. “Danny, are you all right? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost!” She squeezed his hand and said with minor panic. “You’re okay, right? I’d just _die_ if I couldn’t go on.”

 

“I’m fine.” Unconvincing, but she believed it, nodding with a faint smile on her lips. Kurt couldn’t contain a flinch when she stooped suddenly, scooping up the sheet music from the floor beside him and holding it out.

 

“You dropped the music, Danny. You should take better care of it.” Kurt took the papers, reordered somehow, and chose not to question it.

 

The quiet music stopped, the stage lights dropped, casting them into near-darkness, and the mannequins were applauding again, the hard bang of plastic on plastic a shock after so long with only Tina’s voice and quiet noises he didn’t want to think about. She seemed unbothered by the onslaught of sound, closing her eyes and smiling ecstatically like it was people cheering her on.

 

“It’s us,” she said when the thunder of applause died down. “It’s time for me.”

 

She dropped his hand and smiled at him. “Go, Danny. It’s going to be glorious.”

 

Kurt steeled himself, took the deepest breath he could into lungs that felt constricted by panic, and stepped onto the stage as the lights buzzed and rose in bright heat. He didn’t look out, _couldn’t_ look out, but he could keep his eyes fixed on the piano across the stage as his steps faltered.

 

They were clapping again, and Kurt had to summon every bit of showface he had to make it to the piano. He set the music down with shaking hands and lifted the key cover on the second try after his fingers refused to work.

 

He sat down, and then Amelia was coming out on stage, she must have been, because the applause became even louder, eerily devoid of any hint of humanity. No whistling, no cheering, only empty, plastic applause.

 

It slowly died out, and Kurt looked to see her, her back to him, standing stock still and facing the audience. She looked back at him, her expression calm, with no hint of Tina, and then she nodded her readiness.

 

He turned back to the music- he’d spread “Somewhere” out- and hesitated. His only saving grace was that he knew the song, not that he was a talented sight-reader, not that he could read the smudged score, and Amelia wasn’t going to get what she wanted out of him because he couldn’t have done it on his best day. He exhaled, forcing another inhale, and played the quiet opening bars.

 

The piano was out of tune, but that was only to be expected from an instrument that had sat for over fifty years. She didn’t seem to notice though, and took her entrance like she’d memorized the score.

 

Kurt had heard Tina sing before, but it wasn’t Tina’s voice singing. It came out of her throat, but the inflection, the tone, it was all wrong. The dissonance when it was mixed with his clumsy and out-of-tune piano raised the hair on the back of his neck.

 

When she reached the merciful end, the duet transformed into a solo, Kurt let the piano trail off so she could finish on her own to a silent house. She lifted her face to the lights, singing the final “Somewhere” with a devastating longing.

 

She didn’t move for a long moment, didn’t make the “audience” react, and Kurt stayed still and frozen. It had been a disaster. The most untrained ear could’ve known how bad the performance had been, despite the genuine emotion, and yet she stayed still.

 

Finally she turned to him, one eyebrow raised, and Kurt realized that she thought it was going well, that she expected him to continue. He shuffled ‘Somewhere’ off to the side, spreading out the next score, and was unable to read the title because his vision had blurred with tears.

 

_Really, Kurt? You had all the time in the world to cry, but no, you had to keep your composure, and now that you know the quality of your play doesn’t matter you decide to break down?_ He wiped his eyes, blinking the tears away, and shockingly relieved. If she couldn’t hear his how well he played so long as she could just sing through it, it wasn’t going to be his fault if she wasn’t happy. There was literally nothing he could do save himself or Tina, and the only thing left was to play along.

 

He forced a smile at her, not hiding the moisture in his eyes and hoping she’d assume he’d been moved by her performance, and looked back to the score for ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. He loved Carousel, and knew the song, but now was just grateful that it was mostly carried by the voice rather than the instrumental. It was her turn to come in first, and he nodded when he was ready. Tina’s voice filled the stage a moment later.

 

When you walk through a storm  
Hold your head up high  
And don't be afraid of the dark-

 

She turned and smiled at him with a dizzying joy, singing louder and throwing her arms out to her imaginary crowd. Kurt couldn’t help but wonder what she saw, looking out across them, dropping most of the piano part and letting her voice, as odd as it sounded, carry the song. Was she looking at the faces of people who had once snubbed her and now stared adoringly? Her rival crying? Did Tina see the same thing as the ghost showed her what she wanted to see?

 

He was pulled from his thoughts by an enormous pop, and the spotlight flashed out with a tinkle of shattered glass and a buzz of electricity. Kurt stopped playing altogether with a discordant crash of keys, but Amelia didn’t notice, her melody a counterpoint to the sudden chaos. A moment later there was a crash as the bolts released and the light fell into the lower middle section of the audience.

 

An odd flickering in the remaining lights caught his attention, and Kurt looked up, squinting against the brightness. The theater’s wiring hadn’t survived the years of neglect in good enough condition to tolerate the power being forced through it, and the theater roof was on fire. That was what the explosion had been, why the bolts had given way, and-

 

“Tina, the theater’s on fire. Tina, Tina! Fire!” He could see smoke rising up from below, too, scattering the light, and the spotlight must have been hot enough to light up some of the upholstery or mannequins it had fallen on.

 

She stopped mid-bar, his voice enough to break through where everything else had slid over her. The lights died, leaving them in total darkness except for the glow on the ceiling and in the house.

 

He couldn’t see Tina anymore, but he could hear Amelia, screaming in sudden outrage. “No. _No!_ You can _not_ take this from me, nothing will take this from me!” He didn’t know who she was yelling at, until Tina said, almost calmly, “Kurt, run. I can make her let you out if you go now.”

 

He almost obeyed, the red glow above the audience getting brighter and larger, until he realized what she hadn’t said. “I’m not leaving you here. We’re in this together, and we’re getting out together.”

 

“No, we’re not. She isn’t going to let me leave. You aren’t dying because of me.” Her voice changed, and she was crying. “Just once, it was supposed to be me that they loved. I wanted it forever, but I _needed_ it once.”

 

Kurt couldn’t tell if that was Tina or Amelia, but maybe it didn’t matter. “You were the one,” he lied. “Couldn’t you feel it? Everyone was listening to you perform, and you were as brilliant as a falling star. We know who you are, what you’re capable of.”

 

“I didn’t get to finish.” It was both of them speaking, Tina’s voice overlaid with something otherworldly. “How can they know what I can do?”

 

Kurt looked out at the fire, beginning to crackle loudly as it ate through the ceiling. “How can they _not_?” he echoed Tina, his palms sweaty with panic. “They heard you sing, they know what you have. Anything more would be… it would be gilding the lily.”

 

“How do you know?” she whispered, the fire nearly drowning her out. “How do you _know_ that they loved me?”

 

Kurt took a breath and coughed. The theater was getting brighter as the fire burned, ash beginning to drift down and clog the air. “Listen, Amelia. Can’t you hear them?” There was nothing but the sounds of fire, but she had been so adamant about her audience that Kurt had to hope that she was still listening to them.

 

She closed her eyes, not even breathing as she listened. “No,” she said after a moment. “I can’t hear them.” She looked at him, hard and angry. “There’s nothing to hear, no one to hear me. You _lied_ to me, Danny.” She was in front of him in a flash, grabbing the front of his shirt. “You’ve ruined everything.”

 

“You lied to _yourself_ -”A snap and long, loud creak from the theater roof had them both looking out into the house. “The roof’s going to fall,” Kurt said, sudden tears pricking at his eyes. Ghosts were terrifying and unpredictable. Fire was a terrifying certainty. “We have to get out, the roof is _going to fall oh my god_.”

 

Amelia turned back to him. “What difference does it make to me?” she said tonelessly, all anger drained from her. “I’ve lost my last chance. What is there left to live for?”

 

“I _don’t want to die_!You can’t make that choice for us,” Kurt gasped out around the taste of smoke in his throat. “You died. That was your decision. We’re still here, and Tina trying to help you doesn’t mean that you get to kill her and me.”

 

“She’s scared,” Amelia said. “I don’t know why. All she’ll miss is a lifetime of being passed over. All you’ll miss are your dreams being completely crushed. It’s kinder to help you both die here instead of letting you live until the last bit of naïveté is torn out of you along with your own last chances.”

 

Tina’s face twisted with conflict suddenly, and she forced out, “No. Amelia, no.” Tina spoke with more strength as she regained control, transferring her hand from Kurt’s shirt to his hand, a comforting weight against his panic that was growing with the flames. “This isn’t what you wanted, isn’t what _I_ wanted. There’s no such thing as a last chance, you told me that. Let us go, _please_ Amelia.” She broke into a sob. “I just wanted to _help_ you, I don’t want to die.”

 

“It’ll be better that way,” a new female voice said, using Amelia’s inflections. Tina looked over his shoulder, her eyes wide, and Kurt spun to see a youngish woman wearing the new version of the dress Tina still wore. “You can stay with me, we’ll make it big. Please stay with me?”

 

She was standing too close to him for comfort, and even in the dim light Kurt could see the stage set through her. “You could be Danny,” she said quietly, reaching out and touching his shoulder. Her hand was freezing cold, sinking into his skin until he stepped back from her. “You could be Celeste, Tina, the way she was supposed to be. We’d be happy. I could make you happy.”

 

Kurt readjusted his grip on Tina’s hand, eyeing the gap in the set that would allow them backstage. His dad had loaned him his truck, and he still had the key in his pocket. If they could get out, they could get away, and if Amelia was standing in front of them, she wasn’t in Tina anymore.

 

She looked at him, smiling like she knew what he was thinking. “I can’t be alone again,” she said.

 

Tina pulled him suddenly, backwards toward the edge of the stage. “You won’t be. The theater is burning, Amelia, what will you do with nothing to haunt?” They reached the edge and Tina sat down to make the drop shorter. “This is the way out, come on, we have to go _now_.”

 

“It’s also through the _fire_ ,” Kurt said incredulously. It had spread through the middle section, mannequins melting and twisting, and the roof looked unstable, pieces of debris dropping. Amelia stood by the piano and stared at them, not moving.

 

“She’s blocked all the other exits. It’s the only way left.” Tina pushed herself off the edge, landing gracefully in the orchestra pit.

 

“You aren’t going to make it,” Amelia sang out, suddenly right beside him. “There’s no way you will. Will you sing with me after it’s done? We can find someone to listen.”

 

Kurt looked at her but couldn’t respond, instead sitting down and sliding off, pushing hard to get clearance from the edge of the stage. He landed beside Tina, letting his knees flex to absorb the impact, and she grabbed his hand.

 

The air was better down below, but the rest of the theater was getting more smoke-filled by the moment. “Fire safety says crawl,” Tina said as a piece of burning wood plummeted from the ceiling. “I say we run.”

 

The main doors were barely visible underneath the balcony, and they’d have to pass beneath the burning part of the ceiling, not that there was much that wasn’t burning. They ran between the sections, jumping over burning debris and trying to make a straight line for the doors as the ceiling creaked and groaned above them, threatening to give at any second.

 

Kurt tripped over a mannequin lying in the aisle, nearly invisible in the shifting firelight, and hit the ground hard. Tina helped him up as he choked on the smoke, making the mistake of inhaling too deeply.

 

He looked up to check the roof, and realized that they’d made it underneath the balcony. He thought that the fire had spread to the balcony from the roof, but for now its presence meant that he hadn’t fallen into a fire.

 

“Are you okay?” Tina rasped, her eyes streaming from the smoke. Kurt just nodded and took her hand again, pulling her down to the floor where the air was much more breathable.

 

“I think we should crawl now,” he said, his tongue curiously thick-feeling in his mouth. “No more fire on the floor, and I feel woozy.”

 

Crawling was slower, but it was easier to breathe. Kurt followed Tina up the aisle, cringing as mannequins seemed to watch them go. She stood and rushed the last few feet to the door, hitting the handle hard and pushing.

 

The handle slid smoothly, but the door didn’t move.

 

“Oh no, please no,” she said, pushing harder. Kurt threw himself at the other door and was rewarded by a tiny amount of give, but it wasn’t even enough to get fresh air through. “It’s not locked, the handle moves, _why won’t it open_?!” she screamed, throwing herself against it and dissolving into a coughing fit.

 

“You can’t leave me here,” Amelia said petulantly, appearing beside Tina. “I don’t want to be alone.”

 

Kurt slammed on the handle fruitlessly, throwing all his weight against the door. Every breath was making the burn in his chest worse, and he finally had to cough, every inhale scorching his lungs and throat. The theater blurred, and he was suddenly lying against the door as Amelia smiled at him, smoke obscuring her.

 

“That’s it Danny,” she said gently. “It’ll all be over soon. Just keep breathing.”

 

“No,” Tina said, grabbing his shoulder and shaking. “Kurt, come on, don’t do this. Help me.” He pulled himself up by the handle, and they threw their weight into the door together, to no effect.

 

Tina sagged against him as a crack shot through the theater, louder than anything before, followed by a roar of wind and a series of loud bangs accompanied by an explosion of dust and ash. _That’s the roof_ , Kurt informed himself slowly, everything dulled by the smoke, even fear quiet and faraway for the moment. _The roof came down_.

 

Amelia stood there, looking at them and then at the collapsed roof, confused as if realizing for the first time what a fire meant to an old building. “My theater?” She sounded almost wistful.

 

“It’s not going to survive this, Amelia,” Tina said, coughing again. “Are you still going to-”

 

Amelia flickered and disappeared, and the dullness in his thoughts disappeared with shock as Kurt realized that the balcony above them was moving, sinking, and they were _directly underneath it_ , _oh god he didn’t want to die_. He grabbed Tina’s arm and searched for an escape, any escape, but there was nowhere for them to go, pieces of the roof trapping them underneath the balcony and the smoke choking them both.

 

Tina followed his gaze up and shrieked, slamming herself back against the door. Kurt wrapped his arms around her, pressing them as far back into the cover of the door frame as he could. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, clutching at his sleeve. “I’m so, so sorry.”

 

One of the sides of the balcony gave way, collapsing down at an angle and crushing the seating below it. Kurt slammed his hand into the door, one last time, and it flew open, dumping them onto the concrete floor of the lobby along with a cloud of smoke as the balcony continued to shift and shudder over the noise of the fire.

 

Kurt scrabbled at the floor with his feet, pushing himself away from the door as quickly as he could as they coughed in the fresher air. Tina pushed herself up to her knees, and then doubled over, hacking and gasping.

 

They had to get out. Kurt was still panicking, adrenaline in overdrive, and when the balcony went there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t take the rest of the building with it. He didn’t know exactly why Amelia had relented and opened the door, but they couldn’t trust that she wouldn’t change her mind again.

 

“We’re not dead,” Tina said, wincing. Her voice was raw and pained sounded. “Can you get up?”

 

“Ye-” Kurt’s voice died, and he gave up talking, sitting up quickly and closing his eyes until the dizziness passed. He coughed, grimacing at the wetness, and clambered to his feet.

 

He abruptly found himself sitting down again as Tina shook him, supporting his head with her free hand. “Crawling?” she asked between coughs, tears of new panic streaking down the ash on her face.

 

Kurt coughed again, and nodded. The air was getting worse again as the lobby filled with smoke, and standing was obviously a failed endeavour.

 

They crawled toward the exit, skirting around the rolls of carpet and overturned furniture. The flames crackled behind them, and Kurt could hear the sounds of more collapses, spurring them on faster.

 

Amelia appeared in front of the door, and Kurt dropped to his elbows in frustration. “Please don’t leave me here alone,” she begged. “I was alone for so long, I died alone, don’t make me die alone again.”

 

“Amelia, _please_ -” Kurt broke off into coughing, deep, rasping and painful.

 

“Please let us out,” Tina finished for him. Her breathing was loud and irregular, and she listed into him without seeming to realize it.

 

“Just a little longer, Celeste, please? I can feel the theater dying, and it’s going to take me with it. I just can’t be alone, please don’t leave me here alone.”

 

Kurt could reach up and grab the door handle, but he’d be reaching through Amelia to do it and it was so far away now, like it was at the opposite end of a long tunnel. Tina blinked and leaned against him more heavily, and he felt calm despite everything, like he was submerged in a hot bath and the cares of the world were floating away.

 

“I wanted to be famous so bad when we were little. You were the prettiest little thing, Celeste, and I remember you used to follow me around at home, mimicking whatever I’d do. When I sang, you’d sing. When I danced, you’d dance. And then, when we were a little older, I fell in love, and so did you, but he loved me, or we thought he did.”

 

“Do you remember, Danny? She got so mad. Changed her stage name so we didn’t match, left town, but you came back different, Celeste. I never thought you’d do that to me. Take my role, my love, my chance. Why did you hate me so much?”

 

“That was the worst part, knowing that the two people I loved most in the world hated me. There was nothing left after that except my quest for fame, and it was over for me when I lost my spot in the showcase. And then- Well I guess we all know what happened next.”

 

The fire was quiet now, the only sounds left Amelia’s voice, soft like a lullaby. Something deep within Kurt told him to panic, to struggle, but it was so hard to breathe, impossible to stay awake.

 

“I guess it’s all over now, anyway. That balcony is gone, the stage where I was supposed to debut, all those dresses we used to play with, Celeste, do you remember?” She stooped and stroked a cold hand down Kurt’s face. “Goodbye, Danny.” Tina she knelt beside, kissing her temple before she stood again. “I’m sorry, Tina.”

 

And then she was gone, vanished like she’d never been there, and Tina slumped to the floor beside him. Kurt lunged for the door, one last desperate burst of motion. He pushed the handle, opening it enough for a blast of cold air, but he couldn’t hold it open, his arm sliding uselessly down the door as it slammed shut again.

 

He blinked, and found himself lying down, half on top of Tina, and he couldn’t remember what he’d been doing. He rolled off of her, fumbling until he found her hand and locking their fingers together.

 

Tina squeezed his hand, so lightly that he wasn’t sure if he’d imagined it, and his eyes were sliding shut, he was just so tired, and he couldn’t feel anything anymore.

 

***

 


	2. Chapter 2

Kurt’s throat was really, _really_ sore.

 

As first things to become aware of when waking up, it wasn’t high on his list of preferences, ranking slightly above “Finn left the bathroom door open”, but vague memories of loud beeping and professional sounding voices made him think that it could be worse.

 

Vague memories were quickly replaced by solid, horrifying ones, and Kurt forced his eyes opened and gasped in panic. “Tina?!” he called, or would have called if he had a working voice. It came out as more a completely noiseless croak.

 

He was in a bright white room, staring at the ceiling, and that wasn’t where he’d gone to sleep. Well, it was probably a good thing, since the theater _had_ been in the process of burning down, but they’d been inside, and Tina had passed out, and what if-

 

There was something on his face, and that was not okay. Kurt reached up to grab at it, only to find his arms frustratingly uncooperative, with one only flopping limply and the other refusing to move at all.

 

“Oh! Hey, shit, no, I mean, Kurt!”

 

Kurt turned his head to the source of the babbling, and oh, Finn was holding his hand, which explained everything about his arm not moving and also Finn’s sudden excitement, because it must have be really bad for Finn to be holding his hand.

 

It didn’t explain anything about Tina though, or the various weird sensations that he was beginning to feel throughout his body, but he didn’t really want Finn fielding the second one. “Tina?” he tried again, still completely silent.

 

“Yeah, dude, sorry, there’s an oxygen mask on your face and I can’t really hear what you’re saying?” Kurt frowned in frustration, and forced the fingers of the hand Finn was pinning to the bed (seriously, it wasn’t arm wrestling, he could ease up a bit) to wiggle until Finn let go slowly. “Is that what you wanted?”

 

Finn looked a little hurt that Kurt didn’t want to hold his hand, and he would’ve rolled his eyes if they didn’t ache along with every other part of his body. Instead he tilted his chin down to his hand pointedly until Finn looked, and deliberately drew a ‘T’ on the sheets.

 

“Um.” Finn looked back up at him, confused. “What was that? A nine?” So his coordination was maybe not the greatest at the moment, but anyone who wasn’t Finn would’ve already figured out what he’d care about, so he wasn’t taking the blame for Finn not understanding. “Okay, no, wait. What would you ask about?” Kurt waited patiently, because it wasn’t like he could do much else. “Oh, ‘T’! Tina? She’s going to be fine too, little bro, it’s all okay.”

 

Kurt didn’t think a skeptical eyebrow wiggle was enough to convey to Finn the nuance of “What happened, what does “fine” mean, and am I going to prison to arson?” and he was right, because Finn said “Yeah dude, nothing to worry about. You just go back to sleep, and I’ll call your dad and a nurse.”

 

Kurt frowned at Finn, but it was tiring to hold a grudge against him for condescension for even a couple moments, and he really was sleepy again.

 

The next time he woke up, it was his dad and Carole in the room, sitting on a small loveseat in a corner and doing some sort of crossword. He tried to gently clear his throat to speak, but something _burned_ when he did and he was coughing uncontrollably, hacking and wheezing for air.

 

When the worst was over, he became aware of his dad patting his back gently and propping him upright in the bed, keeping him from falling back or slumping forward like his weak muscles wanted to. Carole fiddled with something around the back of his head, lifting what had to be the oxygen mask off his face and wiping his mouth gently.

 

“Do you need to spit?” She asked. Kurt wrinkled his nose at the thought, and she said, “I know, gross, but the doctor said that mucus should come out, so you’re going to get used to spitting.” She placed the cloth in his hand and helped him raise it to his face,  and he steeled himself to spit into it.

 

She put the mask back on, and Dad helped him lay back. “How are you feeling?” he asked. “Don’t try to talk yet, maybe one finger tap for no, two for yes.” Kurt waited for a moment, and Dad hastily said, “Let me rephrase that one. You feeling okay?”

 

Kurt paused and evaluated himself. No major pain, unless he coughed, but he could barely move, which was fairly pathetic. He settled for a shrug.

 

“Somewhere in between?” Burt guessed. “Okay. Second question, when did you lose your mind? Was it _before_ you went to New York that you decided burning down theaters was a good way to spend your time? One for no, two for yes.”

 

Kurt stared, and yeah, okay, here was a possible consequence of surviving locked-away-for-life-levels of ghost exposure, how to explain that said ghost had accidentally burned a theater down with her ghost powers to his father. He blinked, trying to figure out what to say, and settled on nothing.

 

“Seriously, Kurt, what were you thinking? You both could have died, and that fire could’ve spread to the woods and back into town.” His dad looked disappointed, and that was something that Kurt couldn’t bear. He couldn’t lie, he was still too asleep for that and a terrible liar anyway, but maybe he could _omit_ things. Things like a ghost.

 

“We didn’t start the fire,” he said, tugging down the oxygen mask to speak more easily but surprised at the sound of his own voice, broken and scratchy. “Tina wanted to sing, I think, and she texted me. She wanted me to play piano, I brought a flashlight, and then the lights came on, neither of us touched them though, I swear, and it was really fun for a little bit, but then the spotlight exploded, and all the doors were locked, we couldn’t get out, but we didn’t start the fire.” He stopped talking when he started to repeat himself, his throat worse than it had been when he’d woken up with Finn.

 

“Why the hell did you lock the doors?” Dad demanded, and Kurt was starting to feel like maybe giving him the third degree as soon as he’d woken up was not the kindest thing Dad could’ve done, because he could’ve at least given him time to come up with a plausible lie instead of just bending the truth.

 

“We didn’t, I don’t know if they were actually locked, we couldn’t get them open. We hid under the balcony when the roof collapsed, but then the balcony started to fall and we still couldn’t get out, but I guess we shifted something at the last second because we got a door open, but I don’t remember anything after the lobby,” and Kurt had to stop because Dad was _crying_ and he never wanted that to happen again. “I’m sorry, I’m _sorry_ , I didn’t mean to-”

 

And crying was clearly a terrible idea for him, because it turned into coughing, nasty, gross coughing, but Dad was holding him still so he couldn’t be too mad unless it was some sort of dad-thing where he was allowed to be furious and still take care of him. It probably was, and oh, the IV in his left hand explained a few things, like where he was (hospital) and why his thoughts felt so out of order (drugs).

 

“Sorry, kid. I should’ve left it a little longer,” Dad said quietly, pushing the mask back over his mouth. “I just about went out of my mind when I got that call, and I’m still not feeling too good about it.”

 

“It’s true,” Carole said, rubbing his arm soothingly. “Not that Blaine was much better, poor kid.” Kurt wasn’t willing to risk talking again, but fortunately Carole was more perceptive than Finn and elaborated. “Do you remember calling him? He was driving out to see what you and Tina were doing when he saw the smoke. It’s lucky you called him, because he called the fire department and got you both out.”

 

“What?” Kurt croaked.

 

“He’s the one who dragged you out, and then he called me after you were in the ambulance,” Burt said. “If you hadn’t called him, you’d both be dead.”

 

“Oh.” Kurt leaned back against the pillows contemplatively. Amelia had told him not to come, but he had anyway, and he had to wonder what Blaine had said to the police that there wasn’t an officer standing in the room, because he had definitely told him that it was a ghost. “Can I see him?”

 

He felt a weird push and pull at the thought of talking to Blaine, because he wanted to see him, always wanted to see him even if he couldn’t handle it, and he wanted to know what had happened at the theater, but he also didn’t want to talk about the two of them, not yet, but he knew that they had to. He couldn’t help but think of Amelia, and what she had and hadn’t said about Danny. He’d betrayed her, and she hadn’t forgiven him, hadn’t moved on or tried again, but had still loved him, and while Kurt didn’t want to die anytime soon, he also didn’t want to love Blaine and hate him for the rest of his life.

 

“He’s at home, but I can tell him he can come by when he gets a chance. Do you want a drink? After that I think the doctor going to come by to do some tests while you’re awake.” Carole held up a small cup of water, helping him remove the mask and holding it to his lips. “Little sips.”

 

Drinking was easier to want to do than actually do, and most of the water eventually ended up on the awful, thin gown he was wearing. The little that he got down was a relief, though, and it wasn’t like he actually wanted the gown in the long-term to mind drooling on it.

 

After an uncomfortable series of tests that the doctor seemed to find encouraging but Kurt mostly felt were unnecessarily painful, and the removal of various tubes and wires, he was alone again for a moment, staring up at the ceiling. Tina was probably as miserable as him, and he was worried about her, and about Blaine. He’d been ready to run into a burning building, that idiot.

 

Amelia though. She was gone, and had been so sad that Kurt almost couldn’t hold a grudge. Only almost though, because he could still taste smoke and remember the terror he’d felt when they’d realized they were trapped. She’d said some things about that had hit close to home, but it had been more about Tina than him, Tina’s insecurities, her anger, and the similarities between them was the scary part now that the danger was over. Well, that and the trouble that they were probably in.

 

He blinked, losing track of his thoughts. The doctor had confirmed that he was on heavy-duty anti-inflammatory and pain medication, among others, and that he was going to be doing a lot of sleeping until he healed, and he was asleep before he’d even realized it.

 

He woke up to Blaine, and the stab of hurt that he’d expected to feel wasn’t there, at least not immediately. “Hey,” he said, and was pleased to discover that as long as he didn’t force himself above a whisper, speaking was painless.

 

“Hi,” Blaine said gently. “Your dad said you asked for me, I can go if you want.”

 

“No, stay, please,” he said, too loudly. “I just, um, they said you saved us.”

 

Blaine shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “You called me. You sounded like you were getting beaten up, and I think I misunderstood most of what you said, because I heard you say something about the theater being haunted, and that Tina was going to kill you, and then I got texted from Tina’s phone and it said not to call the police or you _would_ be dead, and I kind of panicked and just started driving.”

 

Kurt cast an uneasy eye to the open door, where anyone could be listening. “Could you close the door? Just, um, don’t lock it.”

 

“Yeah, of course, whatever you want.” Blaine got up hastily, crossing the room to the door and shutting it quietly before returning to stand beside the bed. “What happened? I got there and the theater was burning and you guys were unconscious, and I’ve spent the last few days _freaking out_ because I thought you were going to die, and yeah, I lied to the police because I didn’t think you’d be holding Tina’s hand if she was actually trying to kill you, and I really don’t want to go to jail, Kurt.” His eyes were wide and scared, and Kurt reached out for him instinctively. Blaine took his hand like it was a lifeline, allowing Kurt to pull him back into his chair.

 

“You can’t tell anyone, okay?” Kurt whispered. Blaine nodded immediately, and Kurt swallowed. “It was a ghost.”

 

Blaine’s shoulders stiffened, and he stared at Kurt for a long moment. “There’s no such thing. It was a fire, not a _ghost_.”

 

“When have I ever lied to you, Blaine? I know how ridiculous it is, okay? Tina got possessed by a vindictive ghost that accidentally burned down the theater while trying to recapture her last chance at fame.” Kurt tried to hold eye contact but had to blink, his eyes still sore.

 

Blaine stared at him, waiting for him to laugh and take it back. When Kurt didn’t, he huffed a breath and rubbed his hand over his cheek. “No,” he said. “No, you’ve never lied to me. Not about big things.” He squeezed Kurt’s hand and stopped talking, just looking at him in the way he had, the one that had always made Kurt feel like Blaine loved him more than anything. Blaine looked away for a moment like he’d realized what he was doing and why he shouldn’t anymore, and got back on the subject. “Are you seriously going to tell people that, though? It sounds…You have to know how it sounds.”

 

He didn’t want to talk about how Blaine still made his heart beat faster with just a look, even after everything, but he could talk about his plan to lie his way out a straightjacket, and he seized the chance, tugging the air mask down around his neck. “I do, which is why I’m going to tell people that Tina called me to the theater, we were singing, and then there was a fire from the lights, and we don’t know how they got turned on, and then the doors were blocked, because as ridiculous as _that_ is, it’s more reasonable than a ghost trying to kill us so she wouldn’t be alone anymore.” Blaine stared at him, wide-eyed, and clearly that wasn’t the best story either because he looked as upset as his dad had, but at least it was slightly plausible. “But I called you and got you involved, so I thought you should know what really happened. And, um, I need Tina to know what I’m saying so we match when people start asking her questions.”

 

“Okay,” he said, running his hand over his hair. “I can do that. I’ll go back and tell her in couple minutes. It’s a little freaky that you’ve already worked everything out, but I’m not really surprised, I guess.”

 

 “Wait, you’ll go back and tell her? She’s awake?”

 

“I stopped in to give her some flowers before I came up here. She was a little distracted, Mike was there, but she’s awake.”

 

“Okay.” If he moved slowly, it was almost like he was healthy, and he slid a hand under his blanket to lift it up and off himself. “In the corner, in that bureau, would you see if there are any clothes and find me some pants if there are?"

 

Blaine went obligingly, pulling the drawers until he found a pair of flimsy hospital pants that would still be better than trying to hold the gown closed around himself as he walked. “Not that I’m trying to tell you what to do, but aren’t you supposed to stay in that bed for a while?”

 

“I have to go see Tina,” Kurt said with finality. “It’s really important.” He reached for the pants, and Blaine surrendered them with a sigh.

 

It took a lot of fidgeting, and he had to stop to catch his breath once because apparently putting on pants was now exerting himself, but Blaine thankfully didn’t offer to help. Well, he’d tried, but Kurt had stared at him until he’d stopped.

 

The oxygen line couldn’t come with him, but the IV stand had wheels, so he could bring it with him. He hadn’t shriveled up and died from breathing the air in the room before, so the extra oxygen was probably just a precaution, and Kurt felt no compunction about pulling the mask over his head and dropping it to the bed.

 

“I don’t think you should do that,” Blaine said firmly, batting his hands aside gently and refastening the mask over his mouth and nose. “Here, look, wheelchair.” He pointed to the corner by the door. “You can sit in there and I’ll push, and that way you don’t have to disconnect anything the doctors think you need.”

 

“It’s attached to the wall, Blaine.” Kurt pulled the mask off again and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I’ll just go for a couple minutes, and then I’ll come back, and it’ll be fine.”

 

“Do you even know what day of the week it is?” Blaine asked, inexplicably and suddenly angry. “Or how long you’ve been in here or how scared everyone’s been? And now you’re saying Tina was a possessed by a ghost that tried to kill you both, and you’re still pretending that everything’s _fine_ and it’ll all work out in the end.”

 

“Don’t yell at me. _You_ don’t get to be mad at _me_.”

 

Blaine wanted to say more, it was clear, but Kurt was teetering on the edge of crying or screaming or _something_ and he hadn’t even realized when he’d gotten upset, and Blaine turned away with a frustrated growl, pushing his fingers into his hair and raking through.

 

“Fine,” he said finally. “Just- _fine_.” He unfolded the wheelchair and pushed it over to the bed. “Can you get into it yourself?”

 

Kurt nodded, not trusting himself with talking at that moment, carefully sliding forward until his feet touched the floor and leaning his weight onto them experimentally. He felt weak and tired already, well, _still_ , but he didn’t need help. He definitely didn’t need help, and he pushed himself upright, shuffling the few steps to the chair and thankful that he didn’t have to walk to Tina because _maybe_ he wasn’t okay yet.

 

He sat down a little harder than he’d meant to, but he’d made it. He fumbled to click the footrests into position, cursing the designer who’d made them so difficult to handle because it definitely wasn’t his clumsiness, and looked up at Blaine.

 

“If you grab the IV stand, it’ll be easier for me to push,” Blaine said neutrally. Kurt pulled it towards himself, wrapping his fingers around the pole.

 

“I’m ready,” he said. Blaine manoeuvred him towards the door carefully. “Thank you,” he added. “For um, coming. Saturday. And today. I’m sorry you were scared.”

 

Blaine was silent as he opened the door and walked through it backwards, pulling Kurt with him. “You don’t have to apologize for me being scared,” he said eventually. “Thank you for trusting me to help you still. It means a lot that you do.”

 

Blaine choked on his words and stopped, and Kurt flashed back to sitting across a table from a boy he’d just met, confessing to everything that he’d kept bottled up because there was no one to tell giving way to dancing at junior prom, a crown weighing heavily on his head turning into giving that boy every part of him and getting the world in return, and it was still just Blaine walking behind him quietly, the person who held his heart but he didn’t know how to talk to anymore.

 

His eyes burned, and he didn’t think it was the smoke inhalation.

 

Mike saved him from having to speak when he unexpectedly called, “Blaine! Where are you guys going?” from behind them

 

Blaine twirled around, spinning Kurt with him, and answered, “Kurt wanted to see you. I guess you had the same idea?”

 

Tina stared at him from the wheelchair Mike was pushing, pale and ill looking, her lips chapped. Kurt’s relief at seeing her alive and semi-well was quickly overshadowed by a silent _‘please don’t let me look that awful’_ just as Tina said, quietly and raspily, “Oh my god, you look awful, I’m so sorry,” and covered her mouth with one hand.

 

He raised a self-conscious hand to his hair as Mike fidgeted uneasily. “Can we get out of the hallway? I think taking Tina out of her room might actually count as kidnapping and I don’t want to have to explain that to my dad.”

 

Blaine left him to reopen the door and hold it open for Mike, coming back to push him back through it after them. “You should get back into bed,” he said quietly. “That way your dad _might_ not find out I helped you stage an escape and murder me.”

 

“He’d just look at you like he expected better. Dad hasn’t needed to threaten physical violence on my behalf for a while.” Kurt was starting to feel a little droopy, and the bed sounded more appealing than he cared to admit. “Where is he? Home?”

 

“Carole said that he stayed awake until you were moved out of intensive care, and then came back right after when Finn said you’d woken up. She was taking him home when I got here. Finn’s in the cafeteria, and Rachel had to go back to New York. She said that you’d understand.” Blaine rattled it off like he’d been expecting the question and rehearsed the answer, and Kurt felt a smile coming on that was broad enough he was glad Blaine was standing behind him.

 

“We were supposed to stay all weekend, though? Why’d she leave already?”

 

“It’s Sunday night, Kurt,” Tina said, her voice painful and gravelly sounding. “And aren’t you supposed to be wearing that oxygen mask?”

 

Kurt sighed heavily and theatrically, but it turned abruptly into a cough in his chest. He breathed as deeply as he could, and it subsided before it turned into a fit, but he still had Tina staring at him with guilt in her eyes, and while it was nice to have people worried about him, he really wasn’t interested in Tina blaming herself for something that she hadn’t had any control over either, in the end. He leveraged himself out of the wheelchair and back towards the bed, only to be nearly knocked over by a resurgence of coughing.

 

Blaine caught his arm, keeping him up until he could sit back down on the bed and catching the oxygen mask back over his face. It was an immediate relief from the pressure in his chest, but he couldn’t help the vague sense of embarrassment at being so exposed.

 

“You okay?” Tina asked when his breathing was almost normal again.

 

Kurt nodded, suddenly exhausted. “Just coughing.”

 

“I’m only allowed to be away for fifteen minutes, and then I have to go back to mine,” Tina whispered. “Mike’s got a timer.” Mike nodded gravely. “But we need to talk, if you’re up to it.”

 

“I can go,” Blaine offered, already turning for the door.

 

“Hang on,” she said. “There’s a big hole in my memories, could you help? What was happening when you got to the theater?”

 

Blaine froze for a moment and then turned back, his expression so calm and collected that it could have been pasted on. “I was driving down the road to the theater, following Kurt’s truck tracks, and there was a light. I didn’t realize what it was at first, but then I realized that it was smoke, and that it could only be from the theater.” He paused like he’d lost the thread, and Tina gestured for him to continue. “Um, I called 911, and I don’t really remember what I said, to be honest. But I got there, and I saw Burt’s truck, and I couldn’t see anyone moving. And then most of the roof caved in, and-”

 

“Wait,” Kurt interrupted, pulling off the mask again and dropping it to the side. “The roof caved in after you got there? We were still in the auditorium at that point.” He’d thought that Blaine had arrived later, for some reason.

 

Mike and Blaine turned matching horrified looks onto him. “The roof caved in on _top of you_?” Mike said, eyes wide.

 

“We were under the balcony, it didn’t fall _on_ us,” Tina said dismissively. “What happened next?”

 

“I called your names, but you didn’t answer, and, uh, that’s when I ran for the doors. I just sort of _knew_ that you were both still inside.” Blaine rubbed his hands on his pants. “But the door wouldn’t open and I couldn’t figure out why, but I could hear voices. I thought that Burt would have something in his truck, so I ran for that, but he’d cleaned it out. I was looking for other entrances, but then I saw the door open, just a crack, and when I got it open you two were on the ground.” His voice cracked, and he coughed a little, looking away. “I pulled you out first because you were already unconscious, and then I went back for Kurt.”

 

“I was awake?” Kurt asked, trying to force memories he couldn’t find to the surface.

 

“You talked to me a little bit,” Blaine said, his expression an unspoken plea to not ask what he’d said. “I pulled you both back to Burt’s truck, and then I just kind of…held onto you until the ambulances came. So you weren’t lying in the snow!” he amended hastily. “I couldn’t get into the truck.”

 

Kurt saw Tina steal an amused glance at Mike, and resisted glaring at them both. It was difficult to maintain his dignity while every breath was a wheeze, but he did it.  “That’s kind of what I thought happened, from what Carole said. Is that all you wanted to know, Tina?”

 

Tina’s amused smirk slid off her face and she shrugged. “I don’t know what I wanted. This whole thing is…confusing. I keep getting mixed up.”

 

“I’ll be outside,” Mike announced as he turned to the door. “Blaine?”

 

“Yeah, coming.” Blaine looked at him as he closed the door, but Kurt deliberately looked at Tina. It was getting uncomfortable enough.

 

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” Tina blurted out as soon as the latch clicked shut. “I just, she told me things, and they were so _perfect_ , I couldn’t help wanting them, and she needed me. I didn’t think that she would hurt- would _do_ the things she did. I started getting freaked out when she was buying the mannequins, but every time I decided to stop going I’d end up there again anyway, and it was easier to just let her do what she wanted.”

 

She stopped and closed her eyes, her chest heaving as she sucked in air desperately. Kurt reached down to touch her arm, nearly overbalancing and toppling off the bed, but managed to regain his balance. “You know I don’t blame you, right? It was Amelia.”

 

“You don’t _understand_ ,” she gasped out, and Kurt had a sudden, unpleasant flashback to her hand wrapped around his wrist and squeezing. He looked at his arm for the first time, noticing that half his forearm had a dark bruise on it, nearly the exact shape of Tina’s hand. “All those times I felt ignored, or underappreciated, or _anything_ , I’d go out there, and she’d say that I was special, that they didn’t know what they were passing over, and we’d show them…just… I _believed_ her, and I’m the reason she called you, and it was all a _lie_.”

 

He didn’t know what to say for a long moment. Tina covered her face with her hands, wiping away tears. “You said…” that entire evening was beginning to blur into a mess of shouting and fire in his memory. “You said that you thought of me when she wanted an accompanist, because I’d understand how you felt, but Amelia was the one that texted me, wasn’t she?” Tina nodded silently. “And you weren’t yourself. Even when you knew I was Kurt and you were Tina, you weren’t acting like you. I don’t think Amelia gave you a choice to be with her or not.  Maybe at the beginning, but not by the end. She was using you, but it wasn’t you.”

 

“I’m just…I’m just so _confused_ ,” she whispered, and she was crying, deep rasping sobs. “She was in my head for so long, and I couldn’t remember what was her and what was me, and now she’s just completely gone and I didn’t realize how horrible it was until now and I _hate_ her but I _don’t_ , because if she hadn’t been there, I never would’ve stood up for myself.”

 

“Two years, right? That was how long you knew her? We’ve been friends for three, and you didn’t need her to stand up for what you wanted. She wanted you to need her like she needed you, but you don’t. Remember when Figgins tried to stop you from wearing your goth clothes?” He squeezed her bicep gently. “Hey? That was all you, girl, no ghost required.” He grinned at her when she looked up, and got a small smile in return. “I know what it’s like to think that all your courage depends on someone else, but it doesn’t. Everything that you’ve accomplished, that was _you_. Amelia stayed in the theater, and you don’t have to be her.”

 

“She was so angry,” Tina whispered, sniffling. “I’m scared that I _will_ end up like her. Alone, and bitter, and everything horrible.”

 

“You won’t be.” He couldn’t reach her hand, so he settled patting her arm in what he hoped was a comforting way. “You have friends, more than she did, who really care about you. I know that sometimes it might seem like I’m just after your sweaters, but we’re still good friends, right?” Tina laughed a little and nodded, and Kurt continued, encouraged. “Mercedes still loves you, Mike obviously still cares even after the break-up. You won’t be alone, and I _do_ believe in your talent. You’re going to make it.”

 

Tina carefully put her feet on the ground, swaying a little as she pushed herself upright. “Careful, what are you-?” was all Kurt got out before she lurched forward and into him, hooking her chin over his shoulder and wrapping her arms around him.

 

“Thank you,” she whispered thickly. Kurt realized almost too late that they were hugging, sliding his arms around her waist to return it. Her hair still smelled faintly of smoke, but she was soft and warm, and he’d needed a hug more than he wanted to admit. “I really needed to hear that. Can I tell you something now?”

 

“About what?”

 

“I think you need to talk to Blaine.”

 

She was holding on too tightly for him to escape. “I know.”

 

“It’s just that he’s still really upset all the time, and you’re obviously not over it either, and trust me that I’m speaking from experience here when I say that it’s not going to get better until you talk it out.”

 

“I already agreed with you,” Kurt pointed out. Tina pulled back a little, but kept her hands on his shoulders for balance. “I tried to talk to him. I couldn’t do it.”

 

“You can. I know you, you’ve probably been practicing what you want to say to him for weeks now. All you have to do is say it.”

 

“Have you talked to Mike?” Kurt snapped. “Since you’re the expert on post-breakup relations?”

 

Tina wasn’t even phased. “We did talk. We know what went wrong, how our communication and trust broke down so badly so quickly, and we’re going to be okay. We might not get back together, but I do still love him, and I didn’t want to be angry forever. It sucked, but it was the right thing to do. You guys are in a different situation, but I still think you’ll both feel better if you just talk.”

 

Tina’s knees bent suddenly, and her full weight was on Kurt’s shoulders for a second before she began to fall. He grabbed her around the waist again to hold her up, and she giggled for a second before it turned into a cough.

 

“I guess that’s a sign that I’m done standing. It’s probably time for me to go back anyway.” She inched backward until she could sit again, visibly suppressing more coughing. “At least there’s no permanent damage. I don’t think I could deal with that.”

 

“No, definitely not. I’m hoping I still have a job, what with the whole involved in the destruction of a historic building, but it could be a lot worse.”

 

“My mom was saying that the investigators have ruled out arson, and that the cops didn’t seem too worried about taking our statements, so that’s good. I haven’t heard anything about the mannequins, though, and I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

 

“Have you been talking to people?” Kurt asked, remembering the entire reason that talking to Tina was so pressing. “What have you been saying?”

 

“I told my mom I was mad about Grease and got you to take me out to the theater to sing out my feelings, and that we didn’t know what started the fire. What did you say?”

 

“I said that it the lights turned on somehow, but we didn’t know how, and the spotlight shorted out and the doors were jammed so we couldn’t get out fast enough. Do you think that those are close enough?”

 

“I was just worried that you’d mention Amelia,” Tina said, smiling suddenly. “It’s not a great story, but I think it’ll work.”

 

“I don’t really want to go to prison, so I hope it does.”

 

There was a knock at the door, and Mike poked his head in. “Tina, your timer just went off.”

 

“It’s going to be fine, Kurt,” she said with a smile, the most genuine one he’d seen from her the entire trip. She took her turn to pat him on the knee as Mike was manoeuvring her past the bed.

 

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Mike said quietly to him. “I’ll come back to see you before I leave town.”

 

Blaine stepped in after they were gone, closing the door behind him again. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You look a little sick.”

 

Kurt’s eyes were caught by the bruise on his arm, dark and ugly. “Am I bruised anywhere else? Like on my face?” he asked. “I know I look awful, Tina pointed that out, but when I was talking to you Amelia hit me with a chair. Does it show?”

 

“No, there’s nothing on your face. Well, your lip is split, and there’s a little swelling, but you look fine.”

 

“You just said I look sick.”

 

“I meant in a ‘maybe you should lie down’ way, not in an ‘oh my god what is that creature?’ way,” Blaine said with a careful smile. “Do you need a hand?”

 

“I think I’ve got it,” Kurt said quickly, sliding back onto the bed and pulling his legs up. He did feel better with his back supported, some of the pressure in his head easing as he relaxed. He bit his lip, considering whether or not he should ask, what Blaine would say, but it was just the two of them and he wanted to know. “What did I say to you?”

 

“Just…things,” Blaine said evasively. “You were really out of it, I’m not sure if I even heard you right. It was really loud.”

 

“Fine. We can talk about something else, if you’re going to be like that. Do you want to know what Tina told me to do?”

 

“Do I?” he said cautiously. “I don’t think I do. Did she tell you to lie about the ghosts?”

 

“She told me that we had to talk, which I knew, obviously, and I think is what you wanted, isn’t it? Unless you want to talk about the ghost more, and I wouldn’t blame you, because seriously, a _ghost_ , but my voice isn’t doing that well and the ghost is gone. You and I are still here.”

 

Blaine nodded jerkily, but his expression was that of someone who didn’t know what to expect and didn’t like it.

 

“I came home to see _you_ , you know, not the play, so we could talk,” Kurt said, and he wasn’t sure anymore if he was mad at Blaine or himself or both. “And then I did, and it hurt so much more than I thought it would, because I never thought that _this_ would be you and me and I feel like such an _idiot-_ ”

 

He had to stop to drag in a breath that caught wrong in his throat, and then he was coughing again, his abdomen cramping painfully at the forced contractions and every breath a struggle. He was aware of Blaine’s hand on his back, helping him sit up, but he couldn’t do anything until his chest finally relaxed again, tipping him back into the pillows.

 

“Do you need me to call someone?” Blaine whispered, and Kurt shook his head wearily but didn’t say anything. “You’re not an idiot,” Blaine said finally, after Kurt’s breathing was almost normal again. “I didn’t mean to-”

 

“Why didn’t you just _say_ something?” Kurt choked out, and he couldn’t pretend that all the tears were from the coughing fit and didn’t bother trying. “What were you thinking, _why_?”

 

“I…” Blaine stopped, looking away. “I felt like you were moving on and growing up, and I was still stuck in Ohio while you were off doing these _amazing_ things and I _know_ you had to go, but I didn’t realize how much I would miss you when you did. And- And I don’t even know what I was thinking, I barely remember if I was mad or lonely or what, I just had to do _something_ , I was losing my mind, and then he messaged me out of the blue and I- I just went.”

 

He couldn’t speak. His throat closed up the same way it had in Battery Park, the same way it had the morning after when he’d sat in his chair listening to Blaine pack behind the privacy divider, in the hallway after the show when only anger had kept him talking, but he couldn’t run away anymore, not while he couldn’t get more than three steps without help, so he had to say something.

 

“But we talked-” and he couldn’t force the words out. He took a deep shuddering breath and tried again. “We had Skype dates, we talked on the phone, it’s not like we were out of touch, why didn’t you say how you felt?”

 

Blaine was crying too, at least, but Kurt felt too miserable to be gratified that he felt as awful as he’d made Kurt feel, and there really was never any pleasure in seeing someone you loved feel anguish anyway. “There was never a good time, and I guess- I guess I was scared you’d agree,” he whispered.

 

“Agree with what?” Kurt didn’t get it, until Blaine refused to look at him. “You thought I was going to break up with you.”

 

“There are so many people in New York, and even if Ohio didn’t appreciate you, New York does, and I thought, ‘Why would he want to be with a stupid kid three states away when he could have any guy in New York,’ and once I thought it I couldn’t get it out of my head, and I kept thinking it but I couldn’t say it, and it just- I lost it.”

 

“Why would I want to be with a stupid kid three states away when I could have any guy in New York?” It didn’t sound any more reasonable when Kurt said it, but Blaine flinched. “Because I’m in love with _you_ , you ass, not some random guy I don’t even know. I picked out a china pattern for our wedding before I’d even transferred back to McKinley, we have dates where we just watch bad television and don’t judge each other for it, you’re the first person that I could ever kiss and _want_ to, and I _know_ how you feel about me.” He had to stop to catch his breath, but Blaine sat quietly, letting him finish. “And I still feel the same stupid feelings when you look at me that I _always_ have even if I don’t want to anymore.”

 

He had to stop again, dizzy and exhausted, tipping his head back and closing his eyes against the spots in his vision. “Are you okay?” Blaine asked, suddenly panicked.

 

He nodded, inducing a sudden vertigo that disappeared as soon as he stopped moving. “Fine.” He tried to slide down so he was laying prone, but got caught up uncomfortably. Blaine pulled the pillow out from underneath his back, helping him lie down, and his warm hand was over Kurt’s cool one suddenly, holding his fingers gently.

 

“Your fingers are freezing,” Blaine observed, sniffling back the end of his tears.

 

“Yeah, well, I guess we know why I’m still in the hospital,” Kurt said as his vision cleared, trying for light-hearted but falling flat.

 

Blaine’s eyes were still damp, his eyelashes clinging together, and it really was unfair that he could still be good-looking after crying when Kurt knew that he was splotchy and red. “Can I?” he asked as he laid a hand over each of Kurt’s, holding his fingers and warming them up. He stood there silently for a long moment, and Kurt looked at his chest so he didn’t have to crane his neck up.

 

“I’m sorry for yelling,” Kurt said. It hadn’t strictly been yelling, since that was far beyond him at the moment, but he hadn’t meant to launch into a tirade.

 

“I deserved it,” Blaine said.

 

“I’m sorry for calling you an ass, then. Your ass is great, it shouldn’t be used as an insult.”

 

Blaine snorted, rubbing his fingers gently along Kurt’s palms. “You don’t have to apologize for telling me how you feel. If I’d done that- I should’ve done that. I knew I was wrong, and I still drove myself nuts living inside my own head instead of _saying_ when I had a problem.”

 

“The thing is, I missed you a lot too, and it was really weird to hear about McKinley things moving on without me, but I never said it to you,” Kurt admitted. “When we had time to talk, I wanted to spend it _with_ you, not talking about miserable I felt without you. I understand why you didn’t say, and it’s not like I haven’t bottled things up until they exploded too.”

 

“Not like that, though,” Blaine said shakily, and his fingers weren’t moving anymore, just holding tight to Kurt’s hands.

 

“No,” he said as gently as he could. “Not like that, not quite. I’m still really mad, and really hurt, but I understand a little better now why you did what you did. I don’t- We’re not ready to try again, at least I’m not, but…” He trailed off, not sure how to phrase it. “I miss you as my friend, too. Rachel starts talking about Brody’s abs, and I think about calling you to make fun of him. Something happens at work, and my first instinct is still to reach for my phone to find out what you think. When I’m on the train, I keep wondering what you’re doing at that moment and how you’re sleeping and if you’re doing okay, and okay, that one isn’t very platonic.” Even the whisper that he’d been using was beginning to grate in his throat, and Kurt gave up trying to explain. “I miss you. I want to be your friend again.”

 

Blaine bit his lip and looked down, staying silent for so long that Kurt began to wonder if he had stopped listening, or if his rasp had made him incomprehensible. “I was holding you and Tina by your truck, and you grabbed my jacket. You said you were sorry, and that you loved me, and that you missed me.” His voice broke, but he swallowed it down and looked Kurt steadily in the eyes. “That’s all that I could understand of what you said.”

 

“Oh.”

 

He wasn’t sure if it was a memory, or if he’d invented it, but he could feel vague impressions in the greyness that was his memory after the theater lobby of pressing himself into a safe warmth, comforting and familiar.

 

“Well, it wasn’t a lie,” he heard himself saying, tripping over the words. “I love you, but I’m mad at you still, and I think that the distance was too much for us. I need time, and I think you do too, but,” His voice scraped painfully, and he swallowed, trying to keep the tears back, “I don’t want you out of my life. And if we can move past all this hurt, maybe, uh,” he flicked his tongue out over his lips quickly, watching Blaine watch him. “Maybe I can bring you flowers again someday.”

 

“Do you mean it?” Blaine whispered.

 

Kurt squeezed his hands and pulled gently, leaning his face up towards Blaine, as clear a signal as he could manage to ask for what he couldn’t ask for. “I mean it.”

 

Blaine loosened his grip and leaned down slowly, like he wasn’t sure what was happening, and Kurt closed his eyes and leaned forward. Blaine’s lips brushed gently against the side of his mouth, and he turned to meet him.

 

There was a tiny sting from his split lip, but that was lost in the wash of feelings, the electric connection that was kissing Blaine suddenly bittersweet and lacking. Kurt moved his mouth slightly, trying to find what was missing, and then Blaine was pulling back, still holding his hands but breaking the kiss and staying out of range.

 

“You’re right,” Blaine said, and it had been goodbye, even if he hadn’t said it, and it hurt even more than he’d thought it could. “About this whole thing. You are.”

 

“I don’t want to be, if it’s any consolation,” Kurt said, feeling the first tear break loose, joined by the second and third immediately. “I want us to be happy again.”

 

“I do too.” Blaine let go of his hands, replacing the oxygen mask over his face and gently sliding the elastic over his head. “Maybe this is just a bump in the road. And I swear that it’s one that will never happen again.” He reached for Kurt’s hands again, and Kurt took his hand with one and balled the other into a fist. Boyfriends could hold both hands, but friends should probably only hold one at a time.

 

Blaine looked like he understood, which was good, because blinking was getting harder with every second and he needed all his remaining focus to say, “We’re friends right? Still friends?”

 

“Always,” Blaine said quietly. “Are you falling asleep?”

 

“Mmm-hmm,” Kurt murmured. “S’okay?”

 

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s okay.”

 

Blaine started to hum an unidentifiable song quietly, sweetly, and Kurt closed his eyes, letting it carry him off into sleep.

 

***

 

He wasn’t being arrested, and that was really the best outcome he could’ve asked for.

 

“No, it’s the damndest thing,” one of the police officers drawled. “The electrical panels were removed years ago to prevent kids from playing with them, so you couldn’t have turned the lights on if you’d wanted to. There must’ve been a surge in the grid, or _something_ weird, I don’t know, and you and your friend just picked the wrong time to trespass.”

 

“So…we’re not in trouble?” Kurt asked.

 

“No, prosecutor doesn’t want to press charges, so long as you’ve learned your lesson about abandoned buildings. Those doors were supposed to be chained shut, too, but that’s the city’s screw-up, not yours. I don’t even want to know how long they’d been open for. This could’ve been much, much worse than it was.”

 

“Well, we’ve definitely learned our lesson,” Kurt said, as brightly as he could when his palms were sweating and his throat still vaguely ached. “One hundred percent, never trespassing again.”

 

“Glad to hear it. You two have your whole lives ahead of you, no sense throwing them away in a freak accident.” He snapped his notebook shut and looked at his partner, who nodded. “Well, I think we’re done here. An electrical fire matches what we found in the theater, strange as it is, and your story agrees with what Tina Cohen-Chang had to say about it. Just one more thing, off the record, to satisfy my curiosity.” He leaned forward. “I _may_ have got in there myself as a kid, and I never _saw_ anything, but I did hear a few things that freaked me out bad enough to get me running. Did you?”

 

Kurt lips were dry suddenly, and he flicked his tongue over them before answering. “Like what? We were just there so Tina could sing.”

 

“I see. No ghosts, then?”

 

He sounded almost _disappointed_ , and Kurt resisted the urge to disabuse him of the notion that seeing a ghost was something to be desired rather than avoided at all costs, instead forcing a laugh. “No, definitely not. No ghosts.”

 

“Well, then, best of luck to you, Mr. Hummel, and stay out of old buildings,” the officer said, heading for the door.

 

“Wait!” Kurt said suddenly, and he couldn’t believe he was doing it, but they had to know about the mannequins by now, and they hadn’t even been mentioned. They both turned to look at him, and Kurt realized that asking about the mannequins was probably the stupidest thing he could do. What if Tina already had, and had to laugh it off? If they both asked about the same weird thing, it would be obvious that they were hiding something. “Uh, I left my phone in the theater. It’s definitely gone, isn’t it?”

 

“Oh, yeah, it’s gone,” the officer said, a little patronizingly, like he couldn’t believe Kurt was asking about a phone. “Fire department was working control, not extinguish. There’s almost nothing left on the site. You can replace your phone. Don’t worry too much about it.”

 

“I know,” Kurt said, forcing another laugh that was _way_ too nervous, what was he doing? “I was just wondering. Sorry.” The officers left, closing the door behind them, and Kurt sighed in relief.

 

Maybe the mannequins were destroyed, then. Or maybe Tina had explained them. Either way, it was over. He was being released from hospital that afternoon, and flying back to New York the next day, where he apparently still had a job, judging by the email Isabelle had sent and that he’d borrowed his dad’s phone to read, wading through the piles of Facebook notifications and spam to find the important ones. Nothing from NYADA, but he’d only sent the audition video a week ago. There was still time, and maybe he’d follow up on it personally. Once he got the taste of smoke out of his mouth.

 

There was a knock at the door, and Tina opened it, poking her head through hesitantly. “Can I come in?”

 

“Of course,” Kurt said. “Oh, you’re leaving?” She was dressed to leave, heavy jacket over pants and holding a pair of gloves.

 

“My dad took off work to bring me my things, he’s waiting outside. Aren’t you getting out too?”

 

“Finn’s coming later with real clothes. The shop’s really busy right now, I guess it’s that time of year, and he couldn’t take the whole day.”

 

“You’re trusting Finn to pick out your clothes?”

 

“I gave _very_ specific instructions.” Kurt looked Tina up and down. “You look a lot better.”

 

“Well, I hope so. I made Mike find me a mirror that first day, I think that I might have looked worse if I was dead, but it would’ve been hard.” She smiled broadly at him. “Any problems with the cops?”

 

“No. One of them asked me if we saw any ghosts though.”

 

“What did you say?” Tina leaned in slightly, and Kurt considered playing with her, but decided not to.

 

“I said no, obviously. He’s a cop. Did you mention the mannequins at all?”

 

“No way. I think they were all destroyed, and at this point, I’m hoping that they can’t, like, find traces of the plastic or whatever.”

 

“They can do that?”

 

“I don’t know, I learned forensics from CSI. They’re not really known for their accuracy. Anyway, I came to say good-bye. I’m pretty sure I’m grounded for life, and I won’t see you again before you go.”

 

Kurt pushed himself off the bed and stood up, opening his arms. “Come here,” he invited, and that was all she needed to step into him, wrapping her arms around his waist in a hug that was almost too tight. “You’re going to call me, right?”

 

“You have to call me too. I’ll keep an eye on Blaine for you, if you want.”

 

“Blaine can keep an eye on Blaine. I want you to look after yourself. Tell me how you’re doing, what you’re doing, and I’ll tell you how I am.”

 

“Being a big city boy turned you even bossier,” Tina said, laughing. “I’m going to be fine. No, Amelia’s gone, and I’m going to be _great_.”

 

“Good,” Kurt said, squeezing her and letting go. “Make sure you don’t let Finn do everything. I love him, and he’s got good instincts for performing, but he’s not infallible, and you’ve got more experience than him.

 

“Believe me, I know,” Tina said, and the verbal eye roll was telegraphed so perfectly that Kurt had to laugh.

 

There was an impatient knock at the door, and Tina half-turned. “That’s my dad. I better go.”

 

“Have fun at Sectionals,” Kurt said, only a little wistfully.

 

Tina smiled at him and said, “You have fun in New York, being all grown-up and responsible.”

 

“I was just involved in the destruction of a historic building,” Kurt said, grinning sardonically. “What about that screams grown-up and responsible?”

 

“We’re both still here, aren’t we?” Tina said, pecking him on the cheek. “See you at Christmas?”

 

“It might be Thanksgiving. Rachel and I still don’t know what’s going on there, and I think my dad might want me home for it even if he has to pay for the ticket.”

 

“Well, if you’re here, you can come to Sectionals, then. See what Finn’s glorious leadership brings.” The knock on the door was harder the second time, and Tina sighed. “Well, being grounded starts now, I guess. I’ll see you when I see you.”

 

“Bye,” Kurt said. He caught a glimpse of Tina’s dad in the hall, looking stern, and was suddenly glad that being over eighteen meant no more groundings.

 

He sat back on the bed, resigning himself to waiting for Finn, and went over all he could remember, of Amelia, of Tina, of Blaine, in his head. The ache when he thought of Blaine was already fading, and while he didn’t want to admit to Tina how right she’d been, they’d needed to clear the air before healing could start. His lips tingled at the memory of the kiss, and he couldn’t help a smile. It still hurt to think of what Blaine had done, but he could think of the good things too, and he hadn’t had that before.

 

Music filled his head, and he was humming before he realized it, testing the limits of his still healing voice. He tried aloud, singing softly so he wouldn’t disturb anyone.

 

At the end of the storm  
Is a golden sky  
And the sweet silver song of the lark

 

Amelia singing the same song, no longer alone, even if just for that one moment, was all he could think of, and he trailed off, biting his lip. She hadn’t finished, but he could do it for her, or Tina could. Someday, when the memories weren’t so intense.

 

“Hey dude,” Finn said, opening the door and swinging in. “Burt felt bad leaving you here but he couldn’t get away so he sent me early. Ready to go?”

 

Kurt thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye, away from Finn, and spun to see an empty corner. “Sorry,” he said, heart beating fast suddenly. “I, uh, thought I saw someone.”

 

“Weird. You feeling okay?”

 

“I’m fine,” Kurt said absently, watching and waiting to see if he could see it again, but there was nothing. The corner was as empty as it had ever been (if he felt a slight brush of a cold hand against his cheek he told himself he was just imagining things), and there had never been anything there at all. “I’m ready to leave.”

 

***


End file.
